Top tips for new shoodle

[Tomlettegregg]

We're picking up our puppy this weekend. We've done lots of research but would love existing owners to give any top tips on toilet training and correcting barking.

We're crate training initially for sleep and have been told to let them cry which seems mean but I want to set him up for success as he isn't allowed upstairs.

You'd think so! He did 2 poos outside today and I was tidiculously proud.

No wees but I've taken him out maybe 12 times.

@Tomlettegregg I go on and on about Kate Olsen from My Service Dog and Me (YouTube) because I think she is so excellent. She explains the 'why' as well as the 'what'. She describes any reinforcement we do as 'topping up a bank account' and she says that when we ask our dog to perform a behaviour, it isn't us asking that makes the dog do it, or even the treat we have in our hands. It's all the praise and treats we have ever given for that behaviour.

So, in the very early days, you're just practicing a behaviour (taking him outside) then you're getting lucky that you've caught the wee/poo before it happens inside. As you build that 'history' of rewarding the successful toileting and, crucially, ignoring the unsuccessful toileting, you are building a powerful association that good things happen when they toilet outside.

I almost punched the air like a footballer who scored a match winning goal yesterday, because Hazel was wandering around in the garden, then suddenly ran up to the poo palace and did a poo on the gravel.

What our lives have been reduced to!

@Lougle it's nuts isn't it. He also keeps stealing poos from the cats litter tray which beyond being gross just means twice as much cleaning. I've never washed my hands so much and that includes COVID.

@Tomlettegregg for that one (she was eating her own poo) I taught 'leave it' using kibble. Then I immediately said 'leave it' and blocked her reaching her poo after she did a poo, while I cleaned it up. After a couple of days she would poo then walk away from it.

It really is as much about management as training at this stage.

Why has he got access to the tray? All he’s learning is that cat poo is nice, he’s also ingesting litter which can be dangerous and he will be pissing off the cat as litter trays are private spaces for them.

Stop him getting to it. Cat poo is very high in protein so it’s always going to be tasty.

They don't have the same health problems as non cross breeds
this is categorically untrue , the worse scenario is they have the health issues of both breeds involved . I personally don’t like cages and I particularly don’t like cages when people are using them to aid toilet training as that is not the intended use . There are a zillion threads on here about toilet training and it’s probably worth joining in on whatever puppy thread is currently running as it’s excellent support .

Are you using 'cages' synonymously with 'crates'? If you are, I think that the difficulty with crates is that they can be used very effectively but many people want to take shortcuts and just put the dog in the crate and walk away. We spent lots of time teaching our puppy that the crate is great. Now, at almost 13 weeks, she will walk into her crate and settle herself down when she's tired. The door is open and she could easily choose to sleep in the much larger pen that surrounds the crate if she wanted to, but she sees her crate as a nice place to sleep.

@Lougle a crate is a cage, people prefer to use the term crate because that sounds better than ‘my dog sleeps in a cage ‘ .

I have no issue with people thinking my dog sleeps in a cage. She chooses to go in there and curl up. She has a whole lot of space she could choose.

But obviously many people do otherwise they would be called cages by everyone .